Greg Christie, the Contractor General, addressing a question by the Public Accounts Committee in Parliament yesterday. - Ian Allen/Staff Photographer

Contractor General Greg Christie has dismissed documentary reports by the Urban Development Corporation (UDC) relating to the hiring of consultants on the controversial Sandals Whitehouse hotel project.

The UDC had claimed that consultants were hired before the establishment of public sector procurement guidelines.

But in a letter addressed to the UDC and tabled at the Parliament's Public Accounts Committee meeting yesterday, Mr. Christie said the UDC failed to produce any evidence to substantiate its statement.

Documentary evidence

"We have asked that you do this by providing us with documentary evidence to substantiate your assertion. You have not done so. Instead, your letter had gone to the lengths to make a case that the main consultants were selected prior to May 2001, as opposed to being rehired - prior to October 2000," said the letter.

Mr. Christie also maintained that the UDC was constantly misleading the public into believing that it did not breach Government's procurement procedures and guidelines.

"We hold firmly to our assertion that you are constantly changing your story and that it appears that you have deliberately adopted a course of action which is intended to mislead the public into believing that no Government procurement procedures and guidelines were breached by you," said Christie.